The Sea is a Salty One

The last few days of our trip with our kids went by too fast. On the last day we took a horse drawn buggy ride through the narrow streets of Charleston, and I have to say I was reminded of New Orleans. Same old type of city below sea level with a large outdoor market and houses dating back before America was founded. The tour guide was a local historian, which is genuinely the best type of guide to get. I overheard other guides pointing out shopping and drinking establishments to their clients, but this man knew his history all too well. I've always known that there was a difference between Flemish bond laid bricks and American bond, but not the why, or how. I did not know that American bond replaced Flemish because it used far fewer bricks and used more metal support. Sadly as it was an overcast day I did not get decent photos. The funny thing that last day was my son showing me conspiracy theorists/internut ponderings over who I actually am. He and I both laughed at how far...

It's been a  great week here in Charleston, SC in our darling Airbnb house! We've cooked, we've eaten, we've played games, we've laughed and exchanged gifts. Add in yesterday's shoppingpalooza and it's all great. Yesterday I did both a thrift shop run and the Target/Walmart thing to get the last of the things we need for our home in Costa Rica. This trip was unprecedented because I got every single thing on my list and then some. Some really cool things. Yesterday at one thrift shop I got the leftover yarns of a million projects, a bag nearly as big as my carry on bag filled with yarns, patterns and all sorts of knitting and crocheting geegaws for a grand total of 12 bucks! Now I just have to figure out how to take that huge ceramic cookie jar shaped like  a chicken back to Tama today. I never do carry ons since everyone else does, so I'm carrying the chicken on in an extra computer bag. Funniest thing happened here in Charleston. Driving around th...

So we're here, with our kids in Charleston, SC in an absolutely beautiful Airbnb house. This place could not be more perfect. It's beach themed, painted and decorated in the same shades in many rooms of our house. Flying went okay, with one tiny exception. For the first time ever, regardless of TSA Prechek or Clear status I got the thing I've always referred to as the 'deep cavity search.' That thing where they rub you and everything you own down with the special plastics explosive strips to make sure you don't have a bomb. You get semi-groped and patted down rather invasively. Boy was I pissed off! We fly a lot. We have those two screening programs and just applied for Global Entry Status. Very low risk of anything more than bitching about the drunk guy sitting behind me. The other drag is life with Mast Cell. I was fine this travel session right up until I went to pee at the Atlanta airport. The airport bathrooms have these crazy scent things installed in ...

Our lovely housesitter is snuggled all sound in the guesthouse, and I've packed my bags. Going to try to get a few hours of sleep in a moment. The airline changed our flight. It has happened a handful of times here flying home, moved up, moved back whatever. As long as we're not sitting in the terminal like we were the time they pushed our flight back four hours. But I am just puzzling over my morning. It was a doozy. There's a guy I know, that was a member of our church who's now stomped off angrily. Why? Well, he was eager to help out, but he was a big problem. No matter where he was slotted in, or asked to help he just didn't pay enough attention to what he was doing. It always ended oh so badly. Needed to do X during the service, look over and he's lollygagging looking out the window completely in outer space. Then when he realized he was needed or have missed a cue he would start grumbling that someone else had messed up and would cuss and carry on, eve...

So so so so incredibly pissed off right now. Its ten pm do you know where your car is? I don't. The mechanic has had it since Wednesday morn, and the repair keeps getting more complex, expensive and difficult. Figures because this is the same braying Baptist we had in the car a few weeks ago. It was promised Wednesday night, and so on, world without end. Last update at 4 pm was by 9 tonight. Freaking people that claim to be very religious are the worse to deal with in a business capacity. They will lie, cheat and flim flam while mastur-you-know-whating over their Jesus fish. This puts me in an enormous bind. I must finish up my Xmas shopping before flying out on Monday morning. Tomorrow I am supposed to sing. I cannot ever get there. I can see I'm going to have to line up an expensive tourismo van to get to the airport and take a bus in the morning to finish up shopping. This morning I lined up my post about my small sabbatical. The cat is out of the bag about the boo...

A few weeks ago I was busy putting up our Christmas tree after almost wrassling than lady in Walmart for a box of candy. I had television on, playing the traditional Christmas special "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer" I don't know if it's the up and down health, the drugs for the conditions, or just a general sense of weltschmertz (hope I spelled it right), but once we got as far as the Island of Misfit Toys I had a good cry. I kept thinking about how cruel this world is to those of us who aren't toe the line, be like everyone else, oddballs. The misfits. How cruel and awful everyone in the film was to the misfits right up until they found a way to use the misfits. Suddenly useful overriding their oddity. Only acceptable when needed to complete someone else's dream. Of all the things I know in this world being someone that marches to a different beat than most others is something I know all too well. It's uncomfortable, but you cannot help how you are, ...

Yesterday was part surprise, part shock and part sweet nostalgia. I was dusting yesterday early afternoon, and decided as I was dusting my collection of blue and white porcelain to look in the huge ginger jar made of Indonesian Delft my mother in law gave me when she moved to a retirement home. My wonderful mother in law who I loved deeply and treated me like a daughter gave me all of her Indonesian Delft ware. She knew I'd collected blue and white Staffordshire and some other blues and whites, that my dining room in the States was filled with it. This jar was filled with Styrofoam packing peanuts. I never took them out. Figuring with all our moving plans for here and other places perhaps I'd better keep them in. I wasn't going to put anything in the jar anyway. Safer to keep the peanuts. Dusting, and it finally dawns on me that the jar is heavier than it should be. I shook out all of the peanuts and at the bottom were the most amazing things. Completely unexpecte...

Jim had me out this morning before I had my tiny pot of Tico coffee to grocery shop. Car going off to have the transmission rebuilt, so there's no telling how long we'll be without. Not really a problem as buses and taxis are everywhere, but annoying juggling bags in a taxi or bus. I am so not good before coffee either, as I amply demonstrated today by not noticing the one cracked egg in the flat I bought until we got home. Ugh. I am simply not awake until that essential caffeine infusion in coffee. Yesterday was all iguanas and coppers. We saw no less than 4 iguanas here on the property. Two biggest. This guy was four feet long if he was an inch. You rarely see the gold and red iguanas this size here.  This guy was about half his size and the more traditional green/gray combination. I nearly stepped on him because I was walking up under the star fruit tree to see if the big gold one was still in the tree. They eat papayas, mangoes and star fruit along with leaves...

Today started with a bang. We got a text message that someone in London, England was trying to use our credit card and to call in to the fraud department of our credit card. Yes, folks, our recent trip to the good old U.S. of A. involved one of us, either Jim or I, using our card some place that stole the information. After I confirmed to the credit card company that we were still living in Costa Rica and going to Charleston, SC for Christmas we started talking of changing account numbers and getting us new cards. The last time this happened I had just arrived in Costa Rica and our credit card company would not sent your cards out internationally. Now they will, according to the nice man I spoke to. He confidently stated that I would have them in three business days, that in three business days they'd clear customs and be in my hand. Important because we're flying out a week from today. House sitter lined up with keys, codes and knows where the double barrelled shot gun i...

This has been something of an odd week. Not only has the asthma gone from bad to crazy bad in the last few days, but I'd developed the crazy bad heartburn I get when the asthma is bad. I'm not always very good and recognizing that it's not regular occasional heartburn and when it's immune system haywire heartburn, but eventually I figure it out and start tossing in proton pump inhibitors with the other stuff.  I cam be slow to see things, things that I'm not expert at. Just last night i was reading one of my Amazon freebie books. This was about the gold rush in the Yukon back in the late 1800s. One second I'm reading about the mining process, claim jumpers and traversing the Chilkoot and the next second I'm reading a homosexual love scene. I was about sixty percent into the book and up until that point had seen no hints whatsoever that the two characters were gay. I was pretty surprised. Not that I care about that stuff. What I do care about is when writ...

International Living posted a video of living in Tamarindo recently. It made me laugh, especially in light of my activities today. I just had to laugh after view this. While there are some true bits in here there's a lot of wishful thinking designed just for tourism. The restaurants are pretty mediocre here. Very average Gringo food. You might as well be eating these same wings, burgers and whatever at your local Applebee's. Don't come to Tama expecting a great meal. I can only recommend three different places and only one of them is actually in this video. The restaurant/sports bar they mention by name has frozen foods reheated badly, and drug dealers lurking trying to sell you cocaine. It feels very unsafe after dark at that place. I know, I know, I'm a very spoiled beeotch for growing up in New Orleans and living in the D.C. area and I'm judging the restaurants by those standards. You are better off with the street vendors food and the local Costa Rican ...

Yesterday was a fall out day. A day of pretty horrible asthma as the fall out for exposure to chemicals, Sweaty, feverish, wheezing. SOOOO attractive! I spent the day stumbling about coughing and hacking while trying to wash our bedding. A bedding fall out day too. Yesterday was the unpleasant fact of what happens when your waterbed leaks. I don't know how that tiny pinhole occurred on Jim's side of the bed, but I suspect it is Stinky-related. Hole fixed, bedding all washed and dried. Once of the things I am almost anal about is my bed, my bedding. So when something happens like the rare leak it's an all day washing and drying affair. The wool pad sitting directly on the mattress, the silk mattress pad sitting on top of that, with the pillow topper mattress pad on top of that. Followed by sheets, comforter, throw pillows and bed runner at the foot of the bed for pretty. All damp, all requiring washing and drying. An all day affair. Too bad I just looked up and realize...

Today was just another rather dumb goat rodeo. We spent the day in Liberia, but the day slid into the shifty zone immediately. Jim and his new mechanic were taking the car in for a computerized test at a mechanics, to buy car parts and I was tagging along to shop. It went very poorly from the second the new mechanic got into the car. He smelled like he had bathed in the cheapest eye-wateringly bad cologne. The last time I smelled B.O. that strong mixed with horrid cologne was in my youth the time I met Gene Simmons from Kiss. Gagging and immediate asthma. I threw in drugs faster than Roger Sterling with a pile of LSD before donning my hepa mask. I could not say "Get the heck out of the car and take a shower!" like I wanted. I had to just live with the hideous mask on all day. You know how hard it is to shove a burger under the face mask? It sounds racist, but I mentally rename all the mechanics, workmen to all Jose. Half of them are literally named Jose. The rest I don...

Well, shoot, we were scheduled to go sailing today but had to cancel. I threw my stupid back out again without one clue how. I was unpacking the roughly ten boxes marked "Office" that have been languishing in the sewing room closet until Jim's desk set up and file cabinets arrived. We had our pal Bruce make them. I know a lot of folks at church get custom made furniture at a local interior design shop. We don't, we get Bruce to make our stuff and he rebuilt our old beloved furniture. What's wonderful about Bruce that's' not so wonderful about the interior design shop I will not name is that his stuff is unique, one of  a kind handmade. Which appeals to me. I am all about the handmade, always have been. That other place? Nope, their stuff is from a factory rolled off without any differences between the pieces. Same with the high end French imported place. If I'm buying new here I want something that is one of a kind. That's how I roll. Remembe...

So I have a stalker who is upset that I said not nice things about Lori Alexander's book while he posted a review while admitting he'd never read the book yet in violation of Amazon's policies. He's rather dull, but he is a friend of the other Lori friend sending me threats - Trey. So........ in the interests of suing or doxxing me I'm going to repeat myself once again. Doofus, I live overseas in a place without street addresses. I live in a place with a twelve foot high fence with broken glass on the top. Our little neighborhood is protected by a Tico at the gate with a gun on his hip. That's two gates and one gun you're going to have to get past to get anywhere near me. Then you face our dogs, the alarm system on the house, and the motion detectors in the actual house, the cameras at the gate, on the property and in the house. Plus you better hope I don't have my daddy's 12 gauge shot gun. Do you feel lucky? That lucky? Airline tickets ...

I am very triggered at this moment. It started the other day when someone on a message board ranted about their child's behavior at the dentist. The mother was spouting all the exact same things my own mother said around me during the same age when I was being molested by the dentist. Granted, I know there is a ton of "Not my kid!" going on in society over the behavior of kids, but this is the opposite, the "My kid is being selfish and needs to shut up!" No, if your child is throwing up, melting down or behaving completely out of context over something simple, like going to the dentist, doctor, daycare, camp, cousin, whatever, then you need to shut up and listen to your child. Find out what's going on there. Likely more than fear of a needle, and sometimes very bad stuff indeed. So I'm shambling along, starting to feel that fear retreating, just a hair, helping Jim move the boxes of files and office supplies stored in the sewing room closet into hi...

Having some ice cream after a few up and down days. Jimmy boy bought a gallon of cookies and cream ice cream off the guy that peddles his Good Humor cooler door to door, along with buying corn and tomatoes and toothbrushes off a pile of door to door sales men. They saw Jim coming. I always buy fresh warm tortillas every morn off the pleasant smiling Tico man on the bicycle who comes by every morning at 9 am. But not the bulk of stuff off the flotsam of door to door vendors Jim does. The fleet of Joses has finally finished after nearly two weeks of digging the dirt, humping it around, pouring concreto and various hijinks with welding machinery to get the massive drainage project out of the way. We're two thousand lighter in the bank account but after yesterday and today's late torrential rain due to a cold front I can honestly say it was worth every damn penny.  The water just scooted on down to the back wall, under and out. The hideous drag and why my posting has been sca...

I think I'm going to have to seriously take an internet mental health break. Why? A few minutes ago on one of the internet groups I am on one of the mothers started bitching. Took her 8 year old to the dentist, a newer dentist she hasn't seen often, and the child had a meltdown, a screaming crying meltdown alone with the dentist. A child that has never minded going to the dentist. Mom is so pissed at the kid, acting like the child is a brat, saying so many ugly things about the kid and the situation because she was not allowing her kid to act like that, and dictate what goes on. She authorized a small dose tranquilizer pill and nitrous be used on the kid and is still fuming over the 'bad behavior'. My mother did and said all those same things to me in the years between 7 and 9 years old that I was going to a certain dentist. Right down to the valium and nitrous. Which only made things that much worse. My mother unknowingly aided and abetted the man that sexually a...

Right after I finished whining the other night about playing Twenty Questions with people that didn't realize how sick I was before filled with very bad health advice Jim called me. Bruce was here with his custom wood desk. Bruce drove up with it and a teeny cute Tico girl that works for him. Get this, ancient Bruce, he's 80 if he's a day, mentally sharp but perhaps not the best healthy specimen out there. His assistant who is 80 pounds soaking wet. Jim, left arm still messed up from his surgery six months ago. Me, sneezing and wheezing. Quite the motley crew to remove a mango wood desk from his truck and carry it into the house over the 18 inch deep concrete trench around the house soon to get covered with a metal grate. Stumbling and rumbling. Shambling and rambling. Two young men in white shirts, dark ties and pants, very clean cut looking took one look at out motley crew, and quickly came to our aid, carrying the desk in. Yes, Mormon missionaries. Turns out one of t...

I have a friend, a sweet friend, but a friend that is frequently wrong about medical conditions and the side effects of drugs. She will not take antibiotics, but she'll use so much colloidal silver her skin turned gray and she was still infected and in pain. I also cannot take any advice from her about the end of the world. She believes in an epic meltdown of society that will be her, her tiny pink pistol and her thousands of dollars worth of Jim Bakker food buckets. I keep trying to tell her if that scenario goes down like that two things will happen. 1) I'll immediately kick the bucket with no asthma drugs and air conditioning available, and 2) It will be armed biker gangs with Uzis, rocket launchers and grenades scuffling over a squirrel carcass after they've removed her food buckets from her. One of her beliefs really makes me laugh. It panicked me at first, I ran to Cindy Kunsman and wanted to know if it was true. What does she believe? That benadryl cause brain tu...

So I went. I went to the 'Millionaires Picnic' this afternoon after a morning of misery. The plumber showed up to replace the plastic dryer vent hose like contraption of the bathroom sink with real pipes. There's just one problem, the same one every time they work on plumbing and other things here. The awful stinky petrochemical based solvents, glues and silicon grouting. I reacted, had to don my hepa filter and chugalug the drugs before I was even done with coffee. I went to hide in my studio and sew, but reacted to the oil I had to use to lube up the sewing machine. It was just one of those I cannot freaking win mornings. Coffee and nebulizers and pills oh my! Took a lunchtime nap from the drugs and awoke in a panic. Jim and I had been fighting in my dream. What were we fighting over? The Pythagorean Theory. The funny of that is that I had to stop and look it up after the dream because I didn't remember enough math to remember what it actually was. I don't k...

It struck me this morning as I was grumblingly wiping down the kitchen countertop for the millionth time this morning why women flip out, rant angrily, have nervous breakdowns and sometimes kill family members. Why? Well, it was obvious when I viewed the pile of used plastic cups. They lose it after telling those same people for the millionth time not to do whatever it is the family is doing that makes their workload insano! You can tell the family not to use the microwave for science experiments, not to skeet-skeet on the kitchen countertop, or not to wipe their dirty feet on the couch cushions, get agreement from family members. Turn back around and there's fresh skeet on that countertop yet again. It's enough to drive a person mad. Are they really that in love with dicing with danger? Forgetful? Love skeeting so much they cannot help it? We keep having the same conversation in this house about using glasses. I tell Jim to do like I do. Use one glass per day and rinse i...

Our fleet of Joses have been continuing on tearing up our yard to put in the Tico Tennessee Valley Hydroelectric project and the beginnings of putting in the supports for the soon to arrive solar panels. They're pounding, and scraping and making an unGodly amount of noise. I am cranky, as you plainly know from my whining yesterday about the former friend gone nuclear crazy toxic blonde firing off constant questions about the Duggars. I finally just blocked her. Let her earn her podcast pay without trying to pick my poor, pathetic, probably pickled stupid on asthma drugs brain. Today went about like the lyrics to that silly song from the sixties, "Harper Valley PTA". After my usual rounds of housework, work-work, working on the book and going with Jim to order more concreto I was contacted by a lady I know from the church here. I've mentioned her before, Maggie. Single mother of a teen, physical therapist, and all around oddball. She's been banned from the chur...

Dear Person Trying to Drive Me Nuts (granted it's not a far drive!) I spent many years living in the Greater Washington D.C. area in Virginia. I know people at just about every federal agency. My husband has worked for the feds for over twenty years. Of course I'm going to know people who love to gossip, who may or may not be on the money over that damned Duggar family that work at those agencies. Do you really think I'm going to give you names and titles of people I'm friends with that work in the investigation services at certain agencies? Would you give out friends names and titles? I know you're just wanting the information so you can publish it on your podcast. You don't care who you have to step on to get the info either. Please stop, get a grip and go smell the flowers. I know you're making crazy bank with your podcast, but I am so not a source. I don't want to enable your madness since you switched to all celeb gossip. Don't you have s...